It’s so strange to me how so many of the same people who talk about how complex the writing of the Red Dead Redemption games is, which it of course is, are the same people who refuse to accept that their favourite cowboy ever did anything actually wrong that can’t be blamed on somebody else. John chose to go after Micah. He heard Arthur tell him not to look back, he heard Abigail pleading with him to stay and he went anyway, and that decision is what eventually got him killed. Arthur Morgan beat Thomas Downes to death. Strauss gave him the debt mission, but Arthur went through with it. He beat a sick, dying man to death and that killed him too. These are important aspects of their stories that trying to push onto somebody else completely removes or ignores the significance of. No one forced John to kill Micah or Arthur to kill Thomas Downes. Micah wasn’t forcing Dutch to do anything he did either. Dutch is already behaving in concerning ways long before Micah really starts with any of that behaviour. Micah did not force his hand, Micah did not make him abandon his sons multiple times, Micah did not make him abuse his girlfriend, Micah did not make him take advantage of the Wapiti people. Hosea is capable of wrongdoing contrary to what many people seem to discuss, but he’s treated by so many people as the perfect most honourable man because he’s placed next to and openly questions one of the worst guys around. Hosea him raising John and Arthur into the outlaw life that would eventually destroy all four of them is not something you can exclusively acknowledge when it comes to cute found family things, it is a flawed part of the very flawed man that Hosea is. The bank robbery was his idea. There was no secret second rat, Abigail and Molly were never sneaking off to Milton in chapter four, he just put together a heist that went badly. Your favourite cowboy has done bad things and you can’t talk about how complex he is if you refuse to acknowledge what makes him complex in the first place.
